From Dave

The below three videos cover 8 topics. The content in them is very specific. Here is the reasoning.

Selection of these 8 topics came about through trial and error, with measurable RESULTS as the goal. ‘Results’ were defined by the ability of group members to testify to measurable growth and changes in their lives catalysed by group involvement, as also by new believers added to the groups.

When I became a pastor after 8 years in inter-church outreach/community ministry, it was as if the ‘shoes were on the other foot’. In applying all I’d been told a pastor should apply it didn’t bring measurable or sustainable growth. I quickly worked out that the paradigms discussed in many Bible colleges and churches are programme based – rather than being focused on the culture, thinking and practices of the members. Blessed to be a pastor in a larger church by NZ standards (I was in Singapore) I had opportunity to experiment, observe and learn. I became an intentional student of church small groups, reading books and attending other church’s conferences, because I needed new knowledge if I were to change the culture of what sat in front of me. Leaders can only take people to a destination they, as the leader, can first see.

The goal that undergirded my eventual approach was that Christian leaders are supposed to be ‘intentional disciple-makers, who make disciples capable of making disciples‘. Furthermore, disciples are made, not born. ‘Intentionality’ is therefore the key word. The goal waste help small group leaders deliver measurable RESULTS. For me, as noted above, these are to be measured by way of (a)  growth members in groups can testify to as a result of their involvement and (b) numerical growth by way of friends who come to faith. The approach therefore needed to be clear-thinking and yet also very simple – suiting already busy people.

More than this, it also needed to be habit based. If it were programme based, we’d all burn out. The goal had to, therefore, be the shaping of a CULTURE with VALUES that would naturally produce the kinds of actions that generate the desired outcomes.

With 50 or more training topics before me, trial and error revealed just 8 of these topics that I concluded a group would not sustainably grow without. ‘We cannot expect if we do not inspect’. By visiting groups (and then training zone pastors to do the same), I began to see common deficits in specific skills, or specific perspectives, that inhibited the direction, warmth, usefulness or momentum of group meetings. With freedom to apply these learnings in a small sector of the church with 4 small groups, these became 23. With oversight then given to 40 other small groups – there was an unwillingness to change. A longer journey was needed to help these leaders see how different thinking could produce different results. For the honest story, the wider church leadership team couldn’t see the potential I was serving and my effort was undermined by church-wide programmes others then decided we should all engage with. These ‘took over’  newly created leadership meetings and frameworks I’d only just begun to put in place – to run programmes. I am a team player – and I will be far from the only church leader to have had things they gave  themselves to not work out as they had hoped.

I remain blessed that there was a sector of the church I had freedom within, with results directly matching those that other churches with similar cultural dynamics were likewise experiencing. The principles do work. In truth, this was the most exciting thing I have ever touched in outreach. I’ve never seen equivalent results in any other area I’ve ministered in – even though the culture established didn’t continue beyond my tenure there for the same reasons as above.

As a perspective – I label the below suggested small group leadership framework the ‘lounge chair model of small group leadership’. This is because it applies principles and practices clearly working in other places, but at a much slower pace. I believe this slower pace to be right in many context, noting how busy people can be.  (God before goals, people before programmes, and team before task.) Through testing it, the below does, I suggest, represent a sufficient pace to still gain momentum. (Like riding a bicycle, if you go too slow you fall off. How fast is needed for basic momentum and balance to be possible?)

The below videos come with participant notes. While this might be viewed as a ‘new leader training’, to view it as such misses what I am suggesting. My suggestion is instead that EXPERTISE in these 8 simple areas is needed. This requires going through this same training repeatedly. Literal expertise in these areas will remove many of the frustrations that discourage leaders, undermining their vision and energy. Some of the ‘lesson’ areas are very simple too. Expertise in these areas will keep leaders focused – leading with vision – generating results – in contrast to their leadership going into the ‘maintenance mode’  common to most church small groups. My suggestion is that an application of these 8 lessons is also EASY to achieve – because the expectation level here is quite low. This isn’t about busyness. This isn’t about doing more. This isn’t about being driven. This is instead about becoming  INTENTIONAL in what we do – though in a way that most church and small group leaders will never have seen or considered. It is the intentionality, combined with foresight and associated skills, that can enable a different level of effectiveness.

It is only through actually applying this for 2 or 3 years that the discovery of how this really can establish a culture that naturally generates the kinds of results above really is possible.

Were I to explain to you how the balancing of a bicycle works  – had you never seen a bicycle or motorcycle before – you would have to see it or try it before you’d believe it.